


(come home) all you wanderers

by crickets



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2011-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	(come home) all you wanderers

  
She almost leaves her ring behind, almost banishes herself to the darkness for good.

 _It's what she deserves_ , she tells herself.

She thinks of Stefan, and how he's managed all of these years. He's never had to live without the sunlight for long, and Caroline knows that in the end it would drive her to madness. Certifiable. _So she keeps it._

She can't deny that there was some kind of thrill in having a secret identity – in being two different people. A day walker and a night walker – one and the same. But it wasn't _really_ the thrill that she craved, it was one last grasp at the life that was, the life that is no longer hers to have. Three weeks ago, _all that ended._ Matt didn't stand by her side. _He couldn't_. And she doesn't blame him. Not after what happened to Vicky. She doesn't blame her mother either, but in the end, it's what hurts the most. She remembers growing up in Mystic Falls and being so proud of her mom. Even through the worst of times. Sure, adolescence changed all that, on the surface, but she still imagined her life here for the long haul, imagined that her mom would always be there for her, would always protect her. She realizes now that Mystic Falls and the whole of the span of her life up until now _is just a blip_ – a tiny, but not insignificant dot on the timeline that is to be her very long life.

The boarding house becomes her refuge because nobody suspects the Salvatores and their big mansion hidden in the trees. _Silly, really._ It's the first place she'd look. But Damon, for all of his faults, even aids in leading the townspeople off her trail. These weeks with Stefan will prove to be invaluable to her. There is still so much she hasn't learned yet. On the day they take her in, she knows this will not be an extended stay. Use them while you can and get out, she tells herself. Damon owes it to her, and Stefan is more than willing, as if she were somehow his responsibility. Sure, she wishes it could be different, but she knows that it won't be long before she is smoked out.

Mystic Falls is no longer her home.

–

Those first days seem as though they were forever ago now, as she pulls the bag she packed a week ago from under the bed in one of the guest rooms. She had hoped to stay longer but knows that it's time to go. She flashes back to the night before, Stefan and her, hunting for the first time in days. They'd been locked in a room in the basement when a couple of the council members camped out in the boarding house, too full of vervain to compel, and Damon and Elena hadn't been able to sneak them any kind of sustenance. Stefan could have left at any time, could have just emerged and gone about his daily routine. But he didn't want to draw attention to that part of the house, and even if he could pull it off without giving away her location, he wasn't going to leave her anyway.

"This is stupid, Stefan," she remembers saying to him, her voice hushed. "You should just go."

"Not a chance, Caroline," he says in that final, yet somehow calming way of his. "We're in this together."

So when Elena finally comes to let them out, to tell them the coast is clear, the first place they head is to the woods.

–

 _She is ravenous_. They both are. There is a storm and the moon is high, and together, they track a family of foxes. She catches sight of the first one, the biggest, and she thinks of Tyler, _wonders if he's doing okay._ They chase them back to their den and devour them in minutes. They don't have the control in them to be careful and clean, and they waste more blood than they can really afford to, the red sticky mess all over their hands and necks and faces. She remembers taking Stefan's face in her hands and licking along his jaw line, letting her thumb slide into the corner of his mouth, between soft lips and over his tongue. He tastes of the coppery tinge of blood and salty skin and all she remembers is being desperate to take as much blood as she can before the rain washes it all away.

"We need another kill," Stefan says, out of breath, but at the same time one hand is at her waist and the other is at her mouth as she takes in each of his fingers.

They lick and growl as they attempt to clean one another off, and eventually Stefan crushes his red mouth to hers, a desperate hungry kiss. She remembers undressing – buttons snapping, and fabric ripping as they tear at each other there in the mud. She briefly remembers him telling her something about how feeding is a visceral and almost sexual experience. He had warned her of this, he made sure she understood how important it is that she stay in control. But now all Caroline can think is how his wet skin feels smooth over hers, her hands at his back. All she can feel is the sensation of Stefan slipping three fingers inside of her and curling upwards, his name escaping her lips as he does, and she catches his mouth in a kiss, her fangs marking him accidentally. She remembers whispering an apology, feeling the hot rush of blood leave her face, just like Stefan taught her, and she remembers Stefan kissing her again, and then down her neck. She arches when she feels his tongue and teeth over her nipple, and she cries out over the thunder when he pushes inside her. She thinks briefly about how wrong this all is, as he fucks her into the ground, but she doesn't once think of stopping, of ending it, of unwrapping her legs from his hips. Instead she bites her bottom lip and tries to match his frantic movements with her own.

–

In the morning, they silently clean off in a nearby stream as best they can, but the storm has left the water a chocolate-brown, muddy mess, and it isn't much help. Here, rinsing fruitlessly in this dirty stream, their nakedness is nothing less than shameful, and Caroline turns away when Stefan catches her blushing.

They emerge from the woods, mud and blood still caked to them in places, in their hair, bruises and scratches everywhere, clothes half-destroyed, and Elena doesn't say a single word.

Damon smirks.

 _The truth is obvious._

–

She won't say goodbye to Stefan, despite wanting to. That much she knows. She waits until she's alone, and then she picks out one of the unused cars from the barn.

 _You're going to get in the car, Caroline. You're going to drive away and you are not gonna look back._ This is what she tells herself as she stands there looking at the single key in her hand.

It doesn't take much convincing, but she knows she's kidding herself about the not looking back part. She hasn't even left yet and already she's doing that. But she pulls open the door and starts the engine anyway, because now she finally understands exactly why Tyler walked away. Even without the last twenty-four hours, she finally gets it. Knowing what she is, what she's done, _what she's capable of_ , it just makes it too hard to look into the eyes of the ones who _used_ to love you.

–

She wakes up at noon on a Tuesday in the parking lot of a truck stop. Since the turn, she hasn't needed nearly as much sleep, but this wasn't need. This was want. _Well, mostly_. The lack of consciousness was appealing, to not have to _think_ so damn much. This was always one of her problems. And to top it all off, she was hungry and running low on blood. If she slept, she'd be able to conserve her energy for the next leg of her drive, _wherever that would take her._

Her phone beeps at her when she turns it on: four missed calls.

Bonnie and her mother don't leave messages. Bonnie has undoubtedly heard about what happened with Stefan, and her mother is currently heading the vampire hunt in Mystic Falls, ready to stake her own daughter on sight. It was probably some vain attempt to track her cell phone. Caroline makes a mental note to leave it turned off unless she absolutely needs it, and to change her number when she can.

The next call is from Stefan, and he doesn't say much, just her name, an apology, and a plea that she let him know that she's okay. He hangs up quickly, and she imagines someone walking in on him during the call, probably Damon, having overheard the one-sided conversation anyway. The next call is a number she doesn't recognize, and the message is near-silent. To anyone else, it _would_ be silent. But because Caroline is a vampire, she can clearly hear Tyler breathing on the other end of the line before he hangs up with a sharp click. Caroline is sure he had wanted her to hear him, or at least that he figured she would anyway, regardless of what he wanted.

She jots the number down on the back of a napkin and starts the car.

 _Now, she's got a direction_ , even if she doesn't know exactly where it is yet.

–

The phone number leads Caroline to a remote town in central Idaho, near a place called Redfish Lake. When she finally finds the place, after days of driving, it's clear why Tyler chose it. Remote, but not completely isolated, plenty of woods to get lost in during a full moon, and the people keep mostly to themselves.

She worries whether or not he'll be alone, whether she'll have a pack of angry wolves to contend with when she knocks on his door. But she checks herself into the only motel in town and figures she'll take a chance. She's come this far, after all. _Might as well._

–

Tyler swims in the mornings and stacks wood in the afternoons, the brisk winter air giving way to more comfortable spring breezes. He's gotten used to being alone, and the truth is, for all of his showboating, he's never felt entirely himself around other people. The cabin is perfect for him, a vacation rental gone south, cheap enough not to draw attention to himself, not that money is an issue, and far enough away from town that nobody bothers him, nobody asks questions.

So when his phone rings that evening, he doesn't pick up.

 _Why ruin a good thing?_

Thirty minutes later, Caroline Forbes is standing on his front porch.

–

She looks every bit as beautiful and sad as the last time he saw her, and the guilt twists in his gut when he remembers what they did to her.

Tyler takes a step forward and gathers her into his arms, where she practically collapses right there on the porch. No words pass between them, just knowing looks and gestures. The two of them are so alike in many ways: Outcasts from the town where they were born, just a couple of monsters trying to find their way. He breathes in, burying his nose in her sweet-smelling hair before he pulls back and tells her just how fucking good it is to see her.

 _Caroline laughs._

–

"Are you alone?" she says after they're inside. "I mean, no wolf pack barking at the door?"

"Nah." Tyler shakes his head. "There's a guy a couple hours north. Buck. He told me about this place. We drove up together, but he doesn't come around, and he doesn't run with Jules and her crew."

Caroline almost winces at the sound of the other werewolf's name. "You don't need to worry," he assures her. "As far as I know, she doesn't know where I am. And truth is? Jules was a bad seed, she did some _dumb_ things, but she's nothing compared to those other guys that ran with Mason. Really, _really_ , bad news. I'm not even sure she knew everything they were up to." He closes his eyes, a memory fighting its way to the surface, but he shakes it off. "I had to get out. So I came here."

He offers to make her some food, but Caroline just smiles. "There good hunting in these woods?" she asks.

–

Caroline takes an hour to hunt, and Tyler makes up a room for her, fresh sheets with pink plaid that were already stored when he got there. When she comes in through the back door, her cheeks look a little more flushed, her smile a little brighter. They watch TV, and afterward Caroline tells him what happened in Mystic Falls with her mom and with Matt. She tells him about hiding out at the Salvatores and being stuck in the basement with Stefan, about getting out. She takes a long moment to think and seems to make a decision in that moment. " _Anyway, things happened_ ," she tells him. "I couldn't stay there anymore."

"I know the feeling," he says, resists asking her for more details, knowing what it's like to not know what the right thing is, knowing what it's like to lose control.

Caroline kisses him then, and for a moment Tyler lets her, but then he sits back, pushing her away.

"Oh my god," Caroline squeaks. "I am _so_ sorry, Tyler." She shakes her head. "I know that you have these _feelings_ and it is so not fair for me to... I don't know what I was doing but, I'm sorry. I should go." She moves to stand but Tyler pulls her back down to the couch.

"Caroline," he says through a smile. "Don't be stupid. You didn't come all this way just to leave again, did you?"

"No," she pouts.

"Stay," he reassures her. "Come on, I made your bed and everything."

–

Caroline finds herself enjoying this place, these woods, Tyler's company. She settles in, _fast_ , and she feels at home here. Not _her_ home, of course, but a home nonetheless. _And that's something._ She sits on the dock in the mornings, watching Tyler swim laps in the chilly lake, the icy water sliding over his body. He tells her the water's fine, but she dips a toe in and calls him crazy. It's only been two weeks, but it's become a ritual already, and she thinks she could probably watch him swim laps forever.

Tyler cooks and Caroline hunts, and some nights she falls asleep in his arms, and she thinks she probably hasn't ever slept so well, not even when she was alive. She remembers Tyler telling her that after he turned, his skin felt like it was on fire. He still feels that way now, like he's running a low-grade fever. In contrast to her cool flesh, running just a few degrees south of normal, he feels good next to her, like hot chocolate or chicken soup on a cold day, and it just makes her curl that much closer to him.

Caroline waters the wolfsbane he has growing in the back, makes sure the plants are healthy and plentiful. It saves Tyler from having to do it, plus, she thinks the flowers are more beautiful than deadly. She checks the calendar off each morning, counting the days before each full moon knowing she'll have to make herself scarce when it arrives. There's one night after dinner, a crescent moon above them on the back porch, and she asks him if it's gotten any better, if it hurts any less.

Tyler shakes his head solemnly, and Caroline holds his hand. He tries to thank her for everything that she did for him back in Mystic Falls, for helping him not to feel so alone, but Caroline just cuts him off with a kiss, their first since that night on the couch. He leads her back into the house and into his bedroom, taking off her clothes as they go. Caroline lets him, peels off his jeans and pulls him down into the bed on top of her.

This is unlike her time with Stefan, and at the same time, the necessity is still there. Tyler is searching and purposeful, and when he takes her the first time, he kisses her slow and breathless. With Stefan, it was fast and rough and over and over. But her heart still pounds in the same way, like something missing is finally finding its rightful place.

–

Two days later, Caroline finds herself calling Stefan from the pay phone outside the tiny general market in town. He answers with her name, and she wonders if that's how he usually answers, or whether he somehow knew it was her calling. She suspects the latter.

"Hey." She says the word slowly, and already the awkward tension bleeds through the phone.

"Thank god. Where are you?" Stefan asks, his voice low. Again, it's as if someone is standing there listening in.

"I know I didn't promise or anything, but you asked. So, I'm okay," she tells him. "I wanted to tell you that. I'm fine. I'm with Tyler, actually."

"That's good," he says. "Tyler. He's a good guy."

Caroline can almost see Stefan nodding in approval and she smiles at that. "I - um, I gotta go," she says, not wanting to stay on the phone too long. "But I wanted to call."

"Hey Caroline?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, Stefan. No big deal."

–

The days grow longer as spring barrels forward, and there are many rainy days and nights that keep them indoors. They joke that this is the most time they've ever spent with each other, despite living in the same town their entire lives, and they take the time to learn about each other, things they never knew, stories they never got a chance to tell.

Caroline makes Tyler her mother's famous pancakes with fruit topping, and Tyler tries to remember the names of all of the cooks who have worked for the Lockwoods over the years. He talks about Matt, who was really the only friend he ever had before all of this. _The only real friend._ Caroline talks about Matt too, and once she mentions this scar he's got on his upper left thigh, and Tyler's face flushes red.

"What is that look for?" she teases.

"Let's just say that Matt and I knew each other a little bit better than we let on..." he trails off, and Caroline sits up straight.

"What?" she shrieks in delight. "Oh, no! No way. You have to tell me the rest!"

"Football camp," he says with a smirk, "Things get lonely."

Caroline slaps him playfully. "Shut up!"

Tyler loses the grin. "No, it wasn't like that," he admits. "He was always there for me, and that summer, after Elena dumped him, things got complicated." He shrugs. "You know, he'd kill me if he knew I was telling you this."

They both get quiet then, thinking of their old friend, and the fact that he sent the town council after Caroline.

"The boy can kiss though," Tyler jokes.

Caroline laughs.

 _It's all she can do._

–

Sometimes Caroline talks about her mom, and Tyler can see it isn't easy for her. She cries, and Tyler comforts her, and she tells him about the time she was seven and her parents took her to some old amusement park in Pennsylvania when they were there visiting one of her uncles. It was the only amusement park she'd ever been to, and it was the last place she remembers her parents ever being really happy.

Tyler suggests they go there sometime, but Caroline shakes her head, says she can't remember the name of it.

She falls asleep in his arms on the back porch that night, and he carries her to her bed, kisses her cheek.

"Goodnight, Caroline," he whispers.

–

Eventually she tells him about Stefan and what happened in the woods. She teases him when he asks for too many details, now that she knows about him and Matt.

"What?" Tyler laughs. She punches him in the shoulder and curls up next to him, kissing the spot where her fist connected.

Tyler whispers into her ear, his hand traveling down the length of her spine. "Tell me the story again," he asks, his voice gruff. She blushes, and lets out a small cry when his hand finds its way between her legs. His hand stills there, waiting for her to go on. She tells him the whole story one more time, every detail, her voice a low whisper, until she can feel his cock hard at her thigh. He prompts her to keep going whenever she slows, and he kisses down her neck, sucking in a nipple, sliding two digits inside her. She is breathless now, and she comes in time with her story, squeezing around his fingers, his thumb at her clit.

After, Caroline reaches down for him, still hard against her leg, and brings him to orgasm, Stefan's name on his lips.

–

 

The days go on like this, until one day, the weekend before the next full moon, Tyler gets a call from Buck.

"A pack," Tyler explains. "Headed here. Buck's not sure what they want or why they're coming, but he wanted to warn me. You have to leave, Caroline."

"Come with me?" she asks, insists.

Tyler shakes his head, kisses her. "I can't," he tells her. "You know I can't." They both look at the date of the full moon circled on the calendar and Caroline thinks of telling him that it doesn't matter, of telling him that she's done it before and she can do it again, but Tyler cuts her off before she can even get the words out. "Not a chance, Caroline," he tells her. "I won't risk losing you. Now that I know what can happen."

Caroline kisses him this time, crushing her mouth to his. The two of them crash to the floor, and after a few moments, they both have only one goal in mind. Tyler works himself out of his pants just enough to slide Caroline's skirt up, pull her panties out of the way and push inside. They fuck there on the wooden floor, right in front of the open back door, the sound of tree frogs and birds singing them a chorus. They fuck like it might be the last time, and Caroline doesn't bite back the screams when she comes.

–

When Tyler emerges from the shower a short while later, there's a note on the kitchen counter, scrawled in pencil on the back of an unopened envelope.

"I couldn't say goodbye," the note reads. "There's someplace I need to see. Let me know when it's safe. - C."

–

The voicemail is brief, but to the point.

"Look, I know something happened between you and Caroline, and I could really use your help," Tyler pauses briefly before explaining himself. "She's gone. We separated for a week. Had to. But now her phone goes straight to voice mail. I was thinking maybe you could track her? Some kind of vampire mojo? Let me know, man."

The message ends, and Stefan is already packing.

–

It doesn't look like anybody's home when he arrives, and Stefan wonders whether Tyler may have been leading him into a trap. In his gut, he trusts the wolf, but trust has gotten him into trouble more than once in life and it wouldn't surprise him now. Twenty-four hours ago he was in Mystic Falls, but a couple of connecting flights and a rental car later, he arrives at the secluded cabin. He might not have been able to find it so quickly, but he rolled down the windows of the truck and could smell the hint of wolfsbane on the heavy summer air.

 _Follow your nose._

It never fails.

Stefan creeps around the side of the wraparound porch, eager to get a look inside one of the larger windows he saw when driving up. "Watch it!" Tyler's voice calls out a threat, and Stefan finds his body pressed up against the wooden beams, strong arms at his neck and back. He doesn't fight, even though he could easily overpower the wolf. Instead, he goes slack.

"Careful!" he says, though his cheek is pressed firmly against the thick wood. "I could get a splinter."

Tyler lets him go then. "Don't sneak up on a person, man," he grins.

Stefan turns around in time to catch the smile. "You understand I could say the same?"

Tyler looks tired, and thinner, and a little rough around the edges, unshaven and in need of a haircut. It's not surprising, though, and Stefan doesn't mention it as he follows him inside. Tyler leads him to the kitchen and offers up a bottle of blood from the fridge.

"Local butcher," he explains. "I thought I'd have some in case she came back hungry."

"Appreciate it," Stefan nods and takes the bottle, untwisting the cap. "Caroline would too."

–

The next couple of days, Stefan follows every trail and scent he can suss out, but Caroline had been hunting in those woods for months now, and there's no way to tell one trail from the next. Besides, he's pretty sure she was smart enough to leave enough dummy trails before she left to keep him busy for a while. Tyler wants to help, but he's not accustomed to tracking a vampire, so most of the time he just stays behind, waiting for the phone to ring.

"She left her car here, but I'm pretty sure she may have gotten one in town or somewhere," Tyler tells Stefan, not for the first time, when he comes back on the third night.

"It's useless," Stefan agrees. "I'm going in circles out there; I hiked across to the other side of the lake even. Not that I thought she'd still be in the woods, but I hoped to get some kind of direction, something to go on. There's nothing out there that we don't already know."

"What about her dad's place?" Tyler suggests. "I mean, she'd be crazy to go there, but if she did and if he called her mom? It would explain why I can't get in touch with her. There are a few other places she might have gone, too."

"There's an idea," Stefan nods. "It beats sitting here wasting our time."

–

 _So they pack_.

Tyler leaves a note for Caroline and assures Stefan the wolf pack won't be back. "One last shot at recruiting me for their cause," he shrugs. "I made it clear I wasn't interested."

They take the small car Caroline boosted from the boarding house, turn in Stefan's rental in town, and head south. "No planes," Stefan insists. "Traveling together like that would be unwise. Plus, this way it'll be easier to follow any leads we might run across."

The road unfolds before them like a line drawn between connect-the-dots, any family or friends Caroline might have contacted or visited, any place she might have stopped along the way, any place she ever expressed any remote interest in. Their hunches range from the practical to the outright bizarre. The first stops are an old friend from grade school who moved to Salt Lake and a cousin in Phoenix. On a whim, they try looking for her in Las Vegas and consider going out to good old Hollywood before they decide to switch gears back to family and friends and try her father's place back East. Tyler even suggests once that they try looking for her in The Mall of America. Stefan laughs, but it doesn't stop him from driving in that direction for several _hundred_ miles until they both realize what a dumb idea it is.

It isn't long until they find themselves heading back toward Virginia. Mystic Falls seems a lifetime away for Tyler, but Stefan thinks it may be worth a shot anyway.

"You don't feel it?" Stefan asks Tyler.

"What?"

"The pull," he explains. "It's like gravity. I feel it every time I get this close to home."

Tyler has to admit that he’s hasn’t felt it, not even as a kid returning home from family vacations. "No, never," he says.

–

They stop for the night in West Virginia. Tyler needs to sleep, needs to get out of the car. Stefan could go on like this for a while, but he understands the wolf isn't as strong as he is, so he pulls off at a roadside motel with a bar and a diner. They eat and drink and talk about Caroline, and in a way it feels like they're old friends. They've created something new here out on the road, away from Mystic Falls. Tyler's become a different person out in his cabin in the woods. Stefan has to admit he doesn't want it to end.

"How do you live with it, man?" Tyler asks him after a few too many whiskeys.

"With what?" Stefan's eyes narrow.

"Everything," Tyler explains, "Everything you've done. This whole _fucked-up thing._ " He pauses. "I know I can't."

–

Back in the room, away from prying ears, Tyler tells Stefan about his first moon after leaving home. He thought he found a good group, a pack he could learn from and grow with. But somebody rigged his locks on the full moon, knowing he'd get out in a city full of people. "Some twisted kind of initiation, I guess," he says. "I don't know what happened, but I'm sure I killed somebody. Maybe more than one."

“Tyler." Stefan says his name like an apology, like he's sorry that he had to go through that.

"I see this face at night when I go to sleep," he continues. "I thought it was Vicky at first. But it's not her. I think," he says. "I think it's a memory. From that night. I'm sure of it."

Stefan sits with the information a little while and moves over to Tyler's bed where they both sit on the edge. "How?" he finally says. "You just do. You live with it. You live. And you try not to make the same mistakes again. You fight it. It's all you can do."

Tyler almost laughs at the optimism of this 160 some-odd-year-old vampire. But instead he kisses him. Stefan's mouth tastes of the beer and the whiskey they downed at the bar earlier, blood, and even the cigarette smoke that had permeated the place. To his surprise, Stefan doesn't pull away, only presses forward, until he's practically on top of Tyler on the bed. Seeing as both of them are half-drunk – their intoxication wearing off – the undressing part doesn't come easy. Tyler remembers Caroline telling him that it calmed her down, after the turn, but right now he feels nothing less than keyed up, unable to focus on what he's doing, banging his head against the crappy headboard and accidentally kneeing Stefan in the side. It isn't until he feels Stefan's hand, cool and sure, wrapped around his cock that he's able to center himself.

"Fuck," he breathes out, thrusting into Stefan's fingers, pulling him in for another messy kiss, all teeth and tongues.

Stefan grins, his teeth flashing devilishly when he pulls away, before going in for another kiss, twisting his wrist as he works at Tyler between them.

–

It's been a long time since Stefan has been with another man. He and Lexie had had themselves a time in the '60s, '70s and '80s. That's for sure. Tyler's athlete body is hard under his hands, and he tastes of the salt of the road, and the thought crosses Stefan's mind that he's never had a wolf before. Tyler doesn't flinch when Stefan’s eyes go momentarily dark at the thought, and Stefan takes the cue, urging Tyler onto his knees.

There's a moment of pause when he thinks he's going too fast, too hard, but Tyler just arches back against him, wanting it, begging for it.

Stefan closes his eyes and presses into the wolf, the motions sending strangled cries from both of their throats. They move together in a rhythm as old as time, and Stefan can hear Tyler calling out his name over the sound of skin on skin. He closes his eyes tight and loses track of time until he comes with Caroline's face behind closed lids.

–

In the morning, Tyler remembers Caroline's story of an amusement park in Pennsylvania, of her parents' last bit of happiness. "You know the story?" he asks, Stefan lying naked at his side.

"No," Stefan says, "but I might know of the place. I once spent a lot of time around those parts."

"You think?" Tyler asks, his voice hopeful.

"I hope," Stefan says.

They dress, both still worn out and a little bruised from the night before, and climb into the car.

–

It's dusk when they reach the parking lot, and the old amusement park is no more. A decaying dinosaur stands at the entrance, pieces and a limb having fallen away, the entrance sign lying flat on the overgrown gravel parking lot.

Stefan imagines what Caroline must have done, finding the place like this, and he lowers his head.

"She's not here," Tyler says, almost a realization.

"Nobody's here," Stefan reasons, watching Tyler exit the car. He kicks the dirt and mutters an obscenity or two, turns around and punches the car door.

"Get in the car, Tyler," Stefan shouts through the open window. "We'll find her, okay? Just get in the car."

–

The waning light from the sun is almost gone when they pass an abandoned car along the side of the road, just a mile or two from the park. Further up the road, Caroline kicks at the dirt as she walks toward town in a white knee-length sundress and a pair of sneakers.

 _If they didn't know any better, they'd have mistaken her for an angel._

"Need a ride?" Tyler calls out when Stefan pulls up next to her. Caroline had barely noticed the car, but she squeals when she sees them, and they both rush out to greet her.

She gathers them both in her arms. "My boys," she says. "My boys." Any innuendo is completely lost on Caroline, who is just happy to see them both.

–

They drive into town looking for a place to stay for the night, but Caroline is starving. "For people food," she says, which makes both of them laugh.

She tells them about her pilgrimage, apologizes to Tyler for worrying him. When she finally did call the cabin, he didn't answer. Turns out he was already on the road with Stefan looking for her. She just had to say goodbye, in some ways, to the life that was before. She had to take some time just to be _Caroline_ , and to be at peace with saying goodbye to all of that one final time. They seem to understand, both nodding as she goes on. Caroline notices something about them, about the way they are together. It's not just that they seem like friends for the first time that she can remember, or that they seem comfortable with one another. _No_ , it's definitely something else.

"You smell like vampire," she teases Tyler when Stefan goes to pay the bill.

"What?" he keeps a straight face, shoves another cold french fry into his mouth.

"Oh please," Caroline laughs. "Was he as good as you imagined?"

Tyler just grins.

–

Caroline and Stefan go to the room while Tyler checks them in.

"I've been thinking about you," she admits to him. "I know we don't have a lot of history. But I feel like you're a part of me, you know? I've had a lot of time to think. And I want you to come with us, back to the cabin."

"But what about Tyler?" Stefan reasons.

"Don't worry about Tyler," Caroline kisses him then, almost chastely. "He wants you there as much as I do."

Stefan gives her a skeptical look and Caroline's mouth curls into a mischievous grin. "Trust me. Can you do that?"

He smiles, brushing the hair out of her eyes. "I think I can."

–

That night, Caroline pulls them both into bed with her, and they sleep on either side of her. She feels at peace here, with Stefan's cool solidness on one side and Tyler's soft warmth on the other. And when she sleeps, she sleeps like the dead, as her mother would say. She's not clear on whether that interpretation could now be considered a literal one. She's made peace with dying, with no longer being _alive_. But the truth is that she feels more alive now than she ever had before. So how does she figure that one out?

In the morning, she kisses them both awake, and neither of them says much about it. They're too groggy, and it's not like there's much to say anyway. She makes her way to the shower, and when she comes back into the room wrapped in a towel, she finds that they've both moved closer to each other on the bed. Stefan's arm is around Tyler's waist, and there's a slight grin on Tyler's lips as he sleeps.

 _My boys,_ she thinks, and giggles a little, finally getting it.

–

The road home is long, and not a one of them would rather be anywhere else.

- _fin_


End file.
